


The Resilient Recovery of Della Duck!

by reas_of_sunshine



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Short One Shot, Therapy, della probably has adhd tbh, various characters mentioned but not really there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23453797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reas_of_sunshine/pseuds/reas_of_sunshine
Summary: Della is aware the things she went through need to be addressed. Today is the day she finally does so.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 64





	The Resilient Recovery of Della Duck!

**Author's Note:**

> #dellaneedstherapy2020
> 
> this was inspired by a convo w my homies so i expanded it

Della Duck was not the type who went to the doctor. Not that she was scared of them or didn’t trust them or anything of that sort, but she was more the type who took care of it herself and if she was dying, only then did she go to the doctor.

Take her leg, for instance.

Well, yes, the one she had to self-amputate on the moon. But actually, she was thinking of the other one.

She was five when she fell out of the hayloft in Grandma’s barn. Donald told her not to climb up there, but she did, anyway. Della limped all the way back to the house and almost laughed in the present, remembering her father fainting, her mother fussing over her ( _“Della darlin’, ye could have gotten yerself killed!”_ ) and Donald chiming in with a classic told-you-so. They spent all night going into the next day at the emergency room.

She still had a scar from that incident, actually.

She was at the doctor for scars once again.

But this time, they weren’t physical.

Now, she was thirty-five — she was getting old, despite the denial and lies she told her sons that no, being on the moon kept her stuck at twenty five — at a completely different sort of doctor.

“Tell me five good things that happened this week, Della,” was how today started out.

Della both despised and delighted in Fridays. First of all, it was Friday, the weekend. But second of all, it meant she had to be here. Not that she hated it or anything, but it wasn’t exactly her favorite activity. She just… knew it had to be done. 

Because maybe the power went out during a thunderstorm, and she was cold and alone and it felt too smothering, too much—

—Donald gave her the card for this lady. It wasn’t his therapist, thankfully, but a colleague of his.

“Five’s a lot, Miriam,” she rebuked.

“Oh, c’mon,” Miriam was a sweet old lady. Very grandma-like. Hard candies, glasses on a chain and all. She was especially slow, but Della wasn’t entirely sure if that was due to her age or the fact she was a sloth. It was entertaining and puzzling.

Della went for the caramels in the candy dish first, shoving a few in her pocket for the boys and Webby. She unwrapped one and mulled it over in her mouth.

“I got to hang out with my youngest cousin today,” she piped up. “We went to the aquarium. He loved it and tried to smuggle a penguin out. Claimed it was his new friend,”

Miriam looked a little perplexed but smiled anyway, slowly taking notes.

The caramel was probably expired. Della wasn’t a huge fan of hard candy but she was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to almost break her teeth. She stuck it in the back of her mouth, and stared up at the ceiling. Pink and white alternating tiles.

“Uh, Huey sold the most Junior Woodchuck cookies. But that’s because I have an addiction and bought two of each flavor,”

“You mentioned you used to be a Junior Woodchuck,” Miriam mused. “Is having something you two bond over help you connect better?”

Della eagerly nodded. “Yeah! Even if he thinks I’m a little embarrassing, that’s my job as his mom,”

“That’s good,” Miriam chuckled, writing some more notes. Or maybe the same ones. Della wasn’t entirely sure.

Two out of five. Almost, technically, sort of halfway there.

Della twiddled her thumbs and bent the knee of her prosthetic for a few moments. “I’m kicking the habit of chucking my leg at things. So I don’t have to keep finding scrap parts — I think I finally settled on a design, anyway,” 

Not too far from the original design, but some spray paint was added (flames were Dewey’s idea, the sword was Webby’s, hence an on-fire sword) and a more durable attachment, because she had a habit of losing her leg as well.

“Kicking the habit,” Miriam said, pointing at Della with her pen.

Okay, so therapy wasn’t that bad. 

The doc definitely made it worth it. Della liked her. For a shrink, she was pretty cool and funny.

“Yeah, exactly,” she laughed. “But, um, two more—let’s see,”

The caramel was softening and so was Della’s tension. The outer shell was chewy but it was still hard as a rock inside. Her tone got softer but she still felt antsy, staring at the door, wondering if she could cut today short.

(No, she couldn’t. Not just because Scrooge paid the full hour but also because she made a promise.)

Miriam set down her pink pen with the feather at the end and nodded, as if to say go on.

“Shoot, I think I’m out,”

“It’s only two, Della. At least one good thing had to have happened each day,”

Della groaned. This lady drove a hard bargain. Sure, yes, technically, lots of good things happened every day. She just didn’t think it would be so hard to remember all of them.

“Dewey and I both learned how to find the variable,” she said. “I can dismantle a plane engine and put it back together in less than an hour but I can’t do algebra. He got a seventy-eight on his homework, which is, like, a Della A plus. I had to motivate him with gummy worms too, but, y’know,”

Miriam smiled. “Alright, what about something good that happened with Louie?”

Della nodded thoughtfully. Her boys were always mentioned quite frequently in her sessions.

They were the ones she made the promise to—even if they didn’t know it. She wanted to be better, to be the best, for them. It was the least she could do.

“I supported him in his new business endeavor. He’s got this thing called a ‘channel’ online? I don’t know, he just wanted me to be in his first video,” she said. “It was fun. It was good. We… didn’t click right away, like I told you before,”

Miriam gave a tiny smile. “But you two came a long way,”

“We did!” Della beamed, nearly hopping out of her chair. “There you go! Five things, Miriam! I actually did it this time! And didn’t go offtopic!”

“And it only took you three months,” It wasn’t sly or rude, it was mere banter. 

Little things like that made this a lot easier. The caramel finally melted away into Della’s mouth and she grinned, going back into the dish for a miniature piece of black licorice. Did Miriam make this new addition because she knew it was Della’s favorite? She stared at it—and pondered. Put it back and went for the red one right next to it.

She tore the package open and twirled the candy between her fingers, not quite biting into it.

“I hate cherry licorice,” she smirked.

But she bit into it, anyway.

Miriam picked her pen back up, flipping to a new page in the notebook. Della liked the old fashioned nature of it all—some other therapist would probably be annoyingly pounding away at a crazy small computer. “Let’s talk about something today. You can pick the topic if you want,”

“Uh, the crazy weather we’ve been having. I’m totally believing that climate change stuff,”

“Something related to you, Della,”

Della rolled her eyes and shrugged, actually, genuinely smiling. “Worth a shot, I guess,” she replied, feigning a dramatic sigh. She twirled the licorice again before taking another bite. The therapy bills were probably solely covering all the candy she consumed during her sessions.

Miriam slowly, maybe almost (but doubtfully) methodically, flipped through the notebook.

“How about we talk about your parents? I see a lack of them in our conversations. Or making amends. You’ve mentioned wanting to do that several times,”

In the past, when confronted with topics, Della wanted to run, throw her chair on the ground and jump out the window. Change her name and never come back to this office. Maybe she still felt that at times, but for fleeting seconds.

She had grown comfortable with talking.

Not bottling it up and blowing up with a tantrum that her brother would both admire and be envious of.

“We could do both,” Della offered, knowing she was walking on ice.

But before, it was a thin sheet, ready to pull her into the depths she feared.

Now, it had become a frozen rock, while still a bit risky, steady nonetheless.

Miriam looked at the notes, and back at her patient. She nodded and went for a new pen, blue and sparkly. “I’m proud of you, Della,” she commented.

It was sort of weird for Della to hear that. Someone was proud of her? For what? Talking her head off? She already did that all the time, anyway. These times, it was just about… topics she buried deep as she could and tried to lock away in the back closet of her brain. Topics that were heavy. Topics that weighed her down. Topics that kept her from being the one and only Della Duck some days.

Her phone buzzed, and when she took it out for a glance, she saw several excited texts from her boys.

She remembered why someone should be proud of her for this. She was suddenly proud of herself, actually.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Thanks,”

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was made possible by comments like you! :)  
> ~reagan


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